Rahal Letterman Lanigan needed to make major improvements on street circuits, and with his second pole position in hand of 2023, Christian Lundgaard confirmed RLL has made big strides since it undertook sweeping changes to improve its fortunes.
Lundgaard’s lap of 1m04.1567s in the No. 45 Honda was well clear of his rivals as the Firestone Fast Six was reconciled using dry tires on a damp track. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was second-fastest in the No. 3 Chevy (+0.3223s), Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was third in the No. 5 Chevy (+0.3933s), Marcus Ericsson (+0.7524s) was fourth for Chip Ganassi Racing in the No. 8 Honda, O’Ward’s teammate Felix Rosenqvist was fifth in the No. 6 Chevy (+0.7856s), and Penske’s Will Power was sixth in the No. 12 Chevy (+0.9136s).
As he so often does, the 21-year-old Dane worked miracles for RLL and captured a surprise pole for the team owned by Bobby Rahal, Mike Lanigan, and David Letterman.
“I have a history — at least in go karts — of being fast in the rain, and I’ve only driven in the rain once with this car and we weren’t competitive, but the car today was just there and I can’t thank this team enough,” said Lundgaard, who was 18 positions ahead of his closest teammate.
“Looking at where we were on street circuits, even last year, we made progress and I can only thank the team at this point.”
Drama at the start of qualifying with the arrival of rain in the final minutes of the opening session favored those who got their best runs in early and penalized those who were waiting until the last moments to register their best time. Championship leader Alex Palou was the biggest name to suffer, but he lacked significant speed prior to the skies opening and didn’t lay blame on the changing conditions for his starting position of 15th, his worst of the season.
Kyle Kirkwood in eighth, Romain Grosjean in ninth, and Colton Herta in 14th—all contenders for pole for Andretti Autosport coming out of the morning session—missed by a lot, as did Penske’s Josef Newgarden in 11th.
Dale Coyne Racing’s David Malukas was also quick in the morning session and had designs on transferring into the Fast 12, but he managed to block CGR’s Dixon on his first flying lap on alternate tires and was duly penalized by the series which left him two spots behind Palou in 17th.
The end result was a qualifying result that has some of IndyCar’s hardest chargers mired many rows behind their usual starting spots which, for racing fans, should make for 85 laps of unpredictable action starting Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET (available only on Peacock).
AS IT HAPPENED
The first half of the field fought over the six transfer spots available in the 10-minute opening session, and with a dry track at their disposal, Kyle Kirkwood was the first to post a significant lap on Firestone’s primary tires. With the switch to the faster green-banded alternate tires, the assembly of 13 drivers were split with the top six led by Kyle Kirkwood, Rinus VeeKay, Christian Lundgaard, Will Power, Scott Dixon, and Scott McLaughlin.
Those who failed to transfer were Helio Castroneves (who starts P13), Alex Palou (P15), David Malukas — who was judged to have blocked Scott Dixon and had his two fastest laps deleted — (P17), Jack Harvey (P19), Ryan Hunter-Reay (P21), Sting Ray Robb (P23), and Benjamin Pedersen (P25).
With the second half of the field using rain tires for their 10-minute session, improving conditions in the final minute saw the top six change repeatedly and once the checkered flag waved, the transferring six were led by Romain Grosjean, Marcus Ericsson, Josef Newgarden, Felix Rosenqvist, Pato O’Ward, and Marcus Armstrong.
Spinners, visitors to the runoff areas, or wall hitters included Agustin Canapino, Colton Herta, Romain Grosjean, Tom Blomqvist, Graham Rahal—who broke his front wing against the barriers, Grosjean again, Alexander Rossi, Herta again, and Marcus Armstrong.
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Those who were finished with qualifying were headed by Colton Herta (who starts P14), Callum Ilott (P16), Agustin Canapino (P18), Tom Blomqvist (P20), Devlin DeFrancesco (P22), Santino Ferrucci (P24), Alexander Rossi—whose car was unable to drive away from the runoff (P26), and Graham Rahal (P27).
“Electrically, the car just died,” Rossi said. “Sucks. I’ve never seen that before. We should have been easily P1 and transferred.”
After a long delay due to race control’s confirmation of the results from the previous session, the Fast 12 took to the wet circuit on rain tires, but the rain was no longer falling. Each lap was decidedly faster than the last as water was evacuated from the track and it was the two who pitted for fresh rain tires at the end of the session who were rewarded, led by O’Ward, Lundgaard, Rosenqvist, McLaughlin, Ericsson — who half spun across the finish line and tagged the wall with his left-rear tire, and Will Power, who made his first Fast Six of the year.
Big surprises were led by the Andretti team which led every session up to qualifying but failed to place any of their four drivers in the Fast Six. The field was set behind the Fast Six with Dixon (P7), Kirkwood (P8), Grosjean (P9), Armstrong (P10), Newgarden (P11), and VeeKay (P12).
The track dried enough for the use of slicks to settle the pole, and with five solid minutes of lapping to complete while some sections were rather wet, the last round of qualifying became a thrilling a battle of car control.
McLaughlin was the first to lose that battle with a half spin that also turned into the blocking of Ericsson with 2m30s left on the clock. Almost every driver took a turn at the top, and on the last lap, Lundgaard flew to his second pole of the season.
McLaughlin, O’Ward, Ericsson, Rosenqvist, and Power rounded out the top six.